1992 Australia Prize

Dr Jim Howarth is managing director of a public company, MCI Ltd in
Forestville in South Australia when he co won the 1992 Australia Prize.

As a senior officer of the Australian Minerals Development
Corporation (AMDEL) in 1972, Dr Howarth set up a division to manufacture
analytical instruments for the minerals industry.

Dr Howarth left AMDEL in 1981 and used his own savings to set up his
own company, Mineral Control Instrumentation in partnership with
Adelaide electronics engineer Mr Richard Kelly and the geophysical
instrument manufacturer Geoex.

When Geoex failed in 1982, Mr Howarth was able to keep MCI going by
finding another partner with connections to the coal industry, Sedgman
and Associates of Brisbane. He supplemented his capital by successfully
applying for dollar-for-dollar grants from the Industrial Research and
Development Board.

Dr Howarth developed a close familiarity with the Australian and
international coal industry, and identified a range of technologies,
developed mainly by CSIRO and the University of Queensland, that could
be applied to in-stream analysis of coal moisture and ash content.

MCI began developing the Coalscan suite of instruments, bootstrapping
itself to success by ploughing most of its profits back into the
development and marketing of new instruments.

MCI survived, became profitable, is profitable, and achieved a
turnover of $10 million in the recession year of 1991. It employs about
40 people, and sells Coalscan instruments mostly to coal-mining
companies in Europe, Africa, India, Asia and the United States.

Today, MCI's Coalscan instruments are acknowledged as the best in the
world. Mr Howarth said the company's success stems from a combination of
factors - the existence of a large domestic market that
enthusiastically embraced its products, helping it to become profitable
before it began exporting.

By re-investing its early revenues, and maintaining a spartan
operation, the company was able to reach commercial viability before
facing the major costs of developing overseas markets. In addition, the
Australian coal industry helped spread word of the excellence of its
instruments to the international marketplace.